One of the largest News Agencies recently asked me about the Energy Transition. These were some really tough open-ended questions: “What are the industry challenges and solutions,” “the key trends and developments“, What are the Challenges I face,” then “What critical solutions are there to the challenges” and finally “What value and guidance would you offer.”

The energy transition is a vast, complex area to view. I took a deep breath and thought about how I would break this down over a discussion of only 45 minutes. I decided to break it down into bite-size chunks such as Key Challenges, Worries, Big Ticket issues, My working issues, and finally, How the energy industry needs to get organized.

On reflection, I realized how many more points I could have raised or explained. Still, the structure of my breaking this down allows for some further thinking and additions that help me build this out, as many struggles with absorbing this energy transition, and I can build on my initial reactions here. Well, that is in my plans going forward.

Key Challenges

I put these into different bullet points.

+We get far too much-mixed advice (it often freezes us)

+Energy is a very closed-up industry- it does not open up its thinking to others for easier transformation

+The need to evolve (global) standards as quickly as possible (for faster adoption)

+Absorption of knowledge and its pace often is overwhelming

+The clarity of different assessments (vested interests, independent views)

+The struggle of individual needs and solutions fitting “standard” offerings

+There is a heavy reliance on peering through the engineer’s lense or mindset, often shutting out broader thinking, especially the customer side on their needs.

+Lack of insight sharing on what works, what is happening, and what is progressing (no great “go too” resource) for broader knowledge understanding.

+Government or Regional Authority issues, different understanding or awareness and the roadblocks of the “lead/ lag” on. this

Worries

• The pace of change
• Level of technology pace, understanding, roadblocks, coming down the pipeline
• Global / EU/ US / Asia, Regional and Local political and economic conflicts
• Regulations are constantly catching up, causing uncertainties
• The Bureaucracy of all the different engaged agents and bodies
• Engagement and involvement of the ultimate consumer

Big Ticket Items

+The swirling, whirling Climate Issues- opinions, facts, fiction and growing realities

+The Green Deal views and Fossil to Green Renewables- the managing of this carefully

+Resilience is the need to achieve in any forward-thinking

+The issue of circular transformation to recycle, repurpose etc.

+The growing worries over Grids, their design, their ability to transmit and distribute for different energy sources and managing central and decentral demand of peaks, storage and troughs.

+The breaking down of the Global supply village and the old value chain dependencies

+Critical rare components, minerals and metals- location, quantity, environment impact and price volatility

+The Electricity needs, scope and coping in this lengthy transition (what is chasing and reconfiguring to what)

+Building constantly for sustainable energy, at what cost to the immediate and the in-between

+Accelerating the digitalization for Energy and building Data reliance

+Demand, Growth and Prosperity are optimistic in change but realistic in reality.

+Securing the Energy Transition- the rhetoric, hype and realities, individual or national- who chooses

My issues

• Energy is a “laggard” in innovation creation, transfer and adoption- it needs a structured process.
• Risks and the barriers of a) Regulatory, b) Financing, c) Enabling infrastructure, d) Social, and e) Cultural constantly do not get evaluated as robustly as they should
• The New Technology Understanding is often piecemeal and driven by the strongest internal voice.
• The ability to listen broadly, the time to read and learn, the time to discuss specifics (outside events)
• Knowing the capabilities, competencies and capabilities in resource, knowledge, and capital internally is often lacking in clarifying context or scoping (and more on briefing external advisors)
• I don’t have time; I need resources and a better platform for helping, advising etc.

The need to get the Energy Industry organized

+The fantastic work of many from IEA, IRENA, UN etc., down through all the think tanks, market intelligence and analytics offered is utterly overwhelming to absorb and translate- global source Energy Wikipedia?

+Central sourcing of Independent funding, criteria, broader acceptance of returns of value

+Instruments, Institutions and the variability of (success) measurement stops promising concepts.

+The need for better roadmaps for key industry transitions, constantly updated, not once a year if you are lucky, and it is of interest to more than a few

+The opening up of public procurements, differences, complexities, resolutions

+Early stage accreditation, experimenting and prototyping methodologies and universal guidelines

+Super transparency of Research and Development, not one-liners placed in an annual report

+The pursuit of standards at national, regional and global levels needs resourcing and directing as it is constantly developing at periodic steps (CoP work, perhaps)

+The CoP meetings need to be SPLIT- experts in one, influencers in another, then finding the assessed middle ground where local politics or lobbyists join the fray ( hope is certainly a fine thing here!)

Summary

If you notice, I avoided or did not even want to get into debates about fuels, generation options, storage, utilization, consumption or the mind-draining points covering distributed, dispatched and variables etc., in a fairer, equitable world, all needing energy.

A lot of knowing where to start is to partly do with anyone’s embarking points and their energy journey, as I have outlined; that is why I invest so much of my time in research and translating this Energy Transforming narrative into a real understanding of its multiple parts.

So how many of these was I able to get across- don’t ask! Hence why I’ve written this post. Therapeutic, perhaps or just simply how hugely challenging and complex the Energy Transition is to grasp and translate as my posting site states; “Innovating the Energy Transition, a transition in all of our lives in knowledge, application and discovery.“